The bustle of Riverbend's South Wharf no longer sounded like creaking wagons and braying mules; it had become a symphony of warehouses, loading cranes, and the shrill bells of red-cap couriers steering cycle-trains between stacks of printed ledgers and crates of machine parts. Sharath paused at the overlook balcony of the old counting-house—now Konrad Arren's logistics tower—and watched a flotilla of canal barges gliding beneath. Their canvas awnings bore fresh crimson logos: SK Logistics Cooperative.
Two years earlier he might have dwelt on the gleaming brass hubs of dockworkers' trikes; today his attention fixed on the ledgers the barges carried. Information had become cargo as tangible—and as valuable—as iron ingots. The kingdom's merchants now dealt in credit notes, insurance certificates, and forward contracts as readily as grain and cloth.
Inside, Konrad waved from behind a desk that resembled the helm of an oceangoing ship: sextants, speaking-tubes, and four separate wire-whisper terminals crackled with incoming price bursts. "You're late, boy," he greeted, eyes twinkling. "The grain futures auction started at dawn."
Sharath grinned. "I was calibrating the new tally punch." On cue, an apprentice wheeled in a hand-cranked contraption of rotating steel drums. Paper tape slid through slotted guides; rows of tiny square holes formed patterns encoding transaction totals.
"Punched counters?" Konrad asked, leaning forward.
"Transactional batch recording," Sharath explained. "Each column represents a ledger field—weight, unit price, client tag. You crank, the machine adds, and prints a verified sum. One clerk instead of five, no copy errors."
Konrad's laugh rang off rafters. "First bicycles, then papers, now number boxes. You'll put accountants in the poorhouse."
"Free them for analysis," Sharath corrected. "Counting's a task; deciding is a craft."
Minutes later the warehouse bell tolled thrice: merchant princes arriving. Lady Siana of Brookrise, draped in indigo wool; Guildmaster Roderick, silk tabard embroidered with cogwheel and quill; Duchess Meren, looking less combative since the demise of her Velocite. They gathered around Konrad's giant conference slate.
"Our markets strain," Roderick began, sliding wax tablets across the table. "Timber out of Greenbelt, ore from Cloud-Fang—demand exceeds wagons even with cycle-railbeds. We need a predictive system, not blind bidding."
Sharath tapped the punch-card drum. "Data makes prediction. We capture real-time volumes, feed into price algorithms—"
"Algorithms?" Lady Siana echoed, unfamiliar syllables tasting foreign.
"Mathematical recipes," he clarified. "If the Lightning Line tells us Brookrise orchards shipped forty tons last quarter, and consumption trends show fifty-ton demand, the formula flags shortage and triggers higher bid caps. Traders react days sooner, preventing price shock."
Konrad rolled a fresh map: The Commodity Clearing House—central board where supply reports flowed via telegraph; auction results printed hourly; merchants placed remote bids by keyed codes. Fees modest, transparency absolute.
Meren frowned. "Transparency threatens margin."
"Margins shrinking anyway," Konrad said. "Better ten-percent profit on doubled volume than thirty on half."
Three hours of debate ended with signatures sealing the Clearing House charter. Sharath's punch counter would be its beating heart; the Lightning Line its nervous system. They scheduled the first open auction for midsummer.
That evening, Sharath walked the wharf with Elina, lanterns flickering gold on river ripples. "We've mechanized movement, printing, even thought arithmetic," he mused. "But the largest engine is still the market. Tame it, and prosperity compounds."
She squeezed his hand. "Tame? Or teach it to sing with the choir rather than solo?"
He chuckled. "Conduct it, then."
The New Economy was more than gears and coins—it was information harnessed to human need. And like every machine Sharath built, it demanded careful calibration, redundant safeguards, and, above all, trust.